Golshany Franciscan Church description and photos - Belarus: Grodno region (Topic)

Golshany Franciscan Church description and photos - Belarus: Grodno region. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photos and a map showing the nearest significant objects.

Photo and description

Golshany Church of St. John the Baptist and the Franciscan Monastery - an architectural complex of the 16th-19th centuries. The temple was built at the beginning of the 16th century, but in 1618 Pavel Stefan Sapega allocated a lot of money to rebuild the temple, as well as build living quarters for Franciscan monks.

In the 18th century, the church was dismantled to the very foundation and rebuilt. Even the orientation of the altar has been changed. The new church was built in the Baroque style and consecrated in honor of St. John the Baptist.

Paul Stefan Sapega was married four times. To his great regret, his wives died for unknown reasons, leaving no heirs to their husband. Only the fourth wife was able to give birth to her husband's three daughters and bury Pavel Sapega in the family tomb of the Church of John the Baptist next to his three young wives who had left untimely. The tombstone used to be in the crypt of the church.

In Soviet times, the church, like most Christian churches, experienced hard times. Thanks to Soviet scientists, the tomb was preserved. Since 1979, it has been in the Museum of Ancient Belarusian Culture of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, however, scientists, unfortunately, are in no hurry to return it to the church.

Recently, a monument to the fourth wife of King Vladislav II Yagailo Sofya Golshanskaya was erected in the courtyard of the monastery. the ancestor of the Jagiellonian dynasty, which in 2005 would have turned 600.

The most famous and darkest ghost legend in Belarus is connected with the construction of the monastery - the legend of the White Panna.

Pavel Stefan Sapega really wanted the monastery to be built by August 6, 1618 and promised a good reward to the builders. Obviously, the money was really serious, because when one of the monastery walls was constantly crumbling and disrupting the construction deadline, the craftsmen turned to the local witch, who agreed to conduct some kind of dark ritual that could tame the rebellious wall. She said that for the ceremony she would need a human sacrifice - let it be the first of the wives who would bring dinner to her husband, the builder. Among the workers was a young guy who had recently married out of great mutual love. It was his wife who always came first. He prayed that something would hold her back but she still came first. It was walled up in a wall, which never collapsed or rebuilt again.

Since then, many eyewitnesses have seen a fragile transparent figure dressed in white clothes in the monastery. The alive walled up woman harbored a grudge against all people, especially men. She is able to drive crazy those who have fallen into her possession, especially if the man stays overnight in the Tower of Ghosts. Scientists are studying supernatural phenomena in the Golshany Monastery, but so far they cannot give answers to many mysteries. In the meantime, Belaya Panna walks around the monastery and scares tourists.

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Topic: Golshany Franciscan Church description and photos - Belarus: Grodno region.